Yesterday President Obama came out strongly in support of the admittedly awfully named principle of net neutrality. I wish he had done so sooner but will take it now. This is an absolutely critical principle to maintain in order to keep the Internet open for innovation. I am not going to rehash all the arguments for why we need it or refute all the points suggesting this is the government encroaching into an area it should stay out of. So instead of just firing away in the comments please first take a look at what I have written about this before.
This is sadly shaping up to be a left versus right political fight. That’s unfortunate because there is nothing in the principle of net neutrality that is inherently left or right. On many similar issues we have had broad coalitions in the past recognize that market structure matters and that companies operating in markets with insufficient competition shouldn’t be allowed to extend their power beyond those markets.
So while it may be too late to avoid a partisan fight, we should try to rebrand this issue as Internet Freedom or Access Liberty and work on building a broad coalition. One interesting starting point for that are the executives of companies such as HBO and Disney that would like to establish a direct relationship with their audience.
Addendum: I just saw this piece which indicates broad support for the principle among conservative voters.
